Game Breaking changes

[lorcoft]

I have a question for the programmers in the community.

I'm currently studying game design in college; I got into a discussion today with one of my teachers who's a graphics programmer about changing the game world.

In a nutshell, I was told that the idea of expanding content in the game world of an MMO by writing new quests, changing NPC locations, dialogue etc is unthinkable in the industry because it's cheaper to design an entire expansion of new content than it would be to forward the story lines, change npc functions (say from merchant to quest NPC) and even a few world changes... changing the model for a building for example; because of the risk of causing a world crashing bug.

The impression I got, is that when a code freeze happens... even suggesting a change to that code is so unthinkable, you could be flogged and castrated. Even as an idea for an expansion. (Which is why WoW is so "ground beaking" by destroying the original game world for the next expansion)

I fully admit I haven't learned a lot in terms of programming yet, but I do know that here in the EQEMU folks have changed NPC's, created brand new NPC's, even the implementation of a BOT system.

If you wanted to, using just the tools created by the community, you could completely rewrite all of EQ's content. Keeping the same game world (the geography), but create objects like tents and barrels.. rewrite every piece of dialogue and even change the name of every zone and from what I've experienced you probably would not break the game.

I've seen completely custom worlds built in the emulator community. I do believe that it is possible that changing 1 NPC that has some bad code somewhere could cause problems to be patched... but is the game world really so fragile?

It seems to me, that not being willing to alter the original game world in an MMO when planning expansions is a wasted chance; I do recognize that players new to the game have to be taken into account... but seriously, is this of such a huge concern to programmers in the industry that it's a cardinal sin to think about it?

[Akkadius]

Originally Posted by lorcoft

I have a question for the programmers in the community.

I'm currently studying game design in college; I got into a discussion today with one of my teachers who's a graphics programmer about changing the game world.

In a nutshell, I was told that the idea of expanding content in the game world of an MMO by writing new quests, changing NPC locations, dialogue etc is unthinkable in the industry because it's cheaper to design an entire expansion of new content than it would be to forward the story lines, change npc functions (say from merchant to quest NPC) and even a few world changes... changing the model for a building for example; because of the risk of causing a world crashing bug.

The impression I got, is that when a code freeze happens... even suggesting a change to that code is so unthinkable, you could be flogged and castrated. Even as an idea for an expansion. (Which is why WoW is so "ground beaking" by destroying the original game world for the next expansion)

I fully admit I haven't learned a lot in terms of programming yet, but I do know that here in the EQEMU folks have changed NPC's, created brand new NPC's, even the implementation of a BOT system.

If you wanted to, using just the tools created by the community, you could completely rewrite all of EQ's content. Keeping the same game world (the geography), but create objects like tents and barrels.. rewrite every piece of dialogue and even change the name of every zone and from what I've experienced you probably would not break the game.

I've seen completely custom worlds built in the emulator community. I do believe that it is possible that changing 1 NPC that has some bad code somewhere could cause problems to be patched... but is the game world really so fragile?

It seems to me, that not being willing to alter the original game world in an MMO when planning expansions is a wasted chance; I do recognize that players new to the game have to be taken into account... but seriously, is this of such a huge concern to programmers in the industry that it's a cardinal sin to think about it?

Well in a sense in what you are talking about yeah, you can break a bunch of stuff with one change. But with enough common sense of what you are doing on your own project, that shouldn't be a problem. But what it comes down to is revenue and bottom line for big companies, that they care more about whats going to make the most profit the fastest. Re-inhancing current content is not of interest of the pocket book based on numbers to the people who give the orders. That's pretty much what it comes down to.

And since that common sense isn't always there because the "good programmers," or the originators of the project (EQ classic/Verant) get farmed out to other MMO/game projects and simply making a separate expansion seems more time/money efficient all around.

[lorcoft]

Akkadius;

Thank you. That's sort of what I thought. I see what you're saying about money being the bottom line. Exploration of new physical space is a huge game play element.

Not sure what this says about the caliber of my instructor. Fortunately, he's just teaching game math and physics.

I'd rather have an instructor that would explain that the underlying drive is the bean counters rather than just say one wrong move could blow up the world.

[ChaosSlayerZ]

EQemu currently is SO flexible that you can re-write the game world WITHOUT changing a single line of code (thats what I am doing with my eq project).
And I pray it stays this way

[gaeorn]

Originally Posted by lorcoft

Akkadius;

Thank you. That's sort of what I thought. I see what you're saying about money being the bottom line. Exploration of new physical space is a huge game play element.

Not sure what this says about the caliber of my instructor. Fortunately, he's just teaching game math and physics.

I'd rather have an instructor that would explain that the underlying drive is the bean counters rather than just say one wrong move could blow up the world.

Don't be too hard on your instructor as it is not unusual for academics to be out of touch with the real world. I found that the IT guys I hired out of college had to be un-trained in some ways because not all of what they had learned would work in the real world.

[bad_captain]

Many rarely actually work in the real world, and are academics their whole lives. Most haven't worked in 20+ years. While in undergrad, I only had 1 professor who was actively working in computer software in the real world, and he was an adjunct. The rest worked maybe in the 70s and 80s, and became professors. Until I went back to a community college, where the professors are part time, and teach in their evenings after their day jobs did I get multiple professors who were active in the field. (and they tended to be much younger).

As with all classes you take, take what they tell you with a grain of salt and make up your own mind. (Most professors are biased in some way and teach accordingly)

[lorcoft]

Thanks folks; I really appreciate the feedback.